Friday Fiends: High-Tech Napoleons

Our two stooges for this week are really C class super villains. Oh sure, they come in fancy flying craft of gold, with blasters that seem to neutralize our powerhouse protagonists, the Shield and Captain Atom (alongside his fellow Sentinels of Justice in their sole "named" appearance), and at the start of the contest they *seem* menacing enough. But alas, it t'wasn't to be. Presenting: the Gloater and the Manipulator. Two real pint-sized one-hit wonders that we *have* to mention for equal time sake!

After a dizzying array of futuristic gadgets inside Gloater's armor, we seek the evil that lurks in this man's heart. Which is overpowered by the wimpy factor after a good star-spangled spanking! He would return for a fleeting appearance in a mass group shot of ultra-criminals, but nevermore focused on (thank goodness). And in the end, he's sent packing to his era with his visions of matching the wickedness of history's most infamous fiends crushed in as many pieces as his armor. Spanked into submission:

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A millionaire businessman named Jonathan Barrington Collingsworth Junior decided one day that the world was not enough (hmmmm, an interesting name for a movie, perhaps?) So he adopted the alias of the Manipulator to live up to the infamous dictators of old. So he channeled his inner Doc Doom and found himself a fantastic four to plague his existence!

Somehow, amazingly, he pulls off what no one else was able to accomplish through the decades of the Action-Heroes' publishing existence. Make them all play nice and in the same sandbox...as in motivate them to join together against a common foe. Okay, Cap Atom and Nightshade had a thing going, and Blue Beetle and Question got together once formally and prior to that informally (Quest was in his civvies on that occasion). Still this was quite an accomplishment, only not the kind the Manipulator would be proud of. Thankfully, while his army of Fiery-Icer, Ironarm,and the Madmen kinda fell flat against our Sentinels, Jr. had enlisted a henchman who seriously upgraded since his last appearance:

And that was that, as both masterminds slunk back into the depths of comic book limbo. And aren't we thankful that we don't have to relive *that* painful experience again? Blue Beetle sure is! Ouch.

Friday Fiends: Fire Fiend & Fiery Friend

We break a pattern this week, as this post should be retitled "Friday Fiend & Friend" as only one of our candidates is a villain who only appeared twice yet is unique enough to consider among the hordes of other hot and cold criminals. The other is a golden age hero who's initial run was short and rarely appeared since, yet started out as a novel idea. Let's start the latter.

Fireball first appeared as Ted Tyler, fearless firefighter, who as often happened in comics both in the golden and then silver ages was exposed to "those" funky experimental chemicals that always seemed to be lying around. Thankfully his buddies are there to bring their unconscious comrade from the flammable structure...or would he have survived considering what was about to occur within his mutating body? Only his unknown creator knew for sure.

Ted then makes miraculously quick recovery (considering the page count of those 1940's comics) and immediately resolves to use his heat absorption and projection powers to fight fire bugs...and decided to track down the cause of his transformation before others are  then transformed as well into superhuman human torches. After all, who needs the competition in the long-underwear set? He still needed to nail the right color scheme, however.

Tracking down "the Bug" (as in firebug), Fireball shows how invincible his powers make him...bullets melt on impact...heat is his to command...his stamina is tremendous and his legs allow him to leap vast distances! And the Bug gets while the getting is good...we're unsure exactly where he landed but we are sure it wasn't pretty. As for Fireball, he continued his career as a one-man firefighting force, preventing fires from getting out of hand and burning bad guys who were their cause.This lasted about a year or so.

After 11 issues in the back pages of Pep, Fireball's fleeting fame burnt out. He next appeared in the 1960's as a potential member of the Mighty Crusaders, in fact he was the first applicant in issue #4. After an outing alongside fellow flaming fellows Firefly and Inferno then working alongside "too many heroes", he returns to retirement until Archie's Weird Mysteries #3 when he's finally accepted as a Crusader himself. Along with two dozen others!

August 1967's Captain Atom #87, a new adversary of our Atomic Ace appeared with an interesting set of abilities, the ability to project scourching heat from his right hand, and biting cold from his left hand...via his projectors attached to his specialized armor. Atom in his alias of Captain Adam, while swimming in the sea, came upon this baddie and his henchmen. And while the hired help aren't exactly pulling their wait, F-I is ready for this new challenge.

After cornering Atom into a trap which his henchmen sent thanks to their freezing cannon, Fiery-Icer mistakenly believes this is the end of the good Captain...sealed in a icey tomb underneath several tons of ocean. Ah if only he knew what was in store...a battle royale with our hero. Apparently Icer's objective is to disable a new missle tracking station which might have interfered with his "purposes" although what those were is unknown. Was he a foreign agent or simply a criminal opportunist?

It seems like Icer comes equipped for any opposition, including a nuclear powered sentinel, and uses a one-two combo of heat and cold to stun Atom. Note that Icer doesn't simply rely on his gadget, using his brawn as well as brains to pin down the Atomic Avenger!  The chips seems down until Cap finds the reserves necessary to deck his truly tempermental temperature foe. Knocking out Icer, Atom frees the ever annoying Abby Ladd from his clutches.  Sigh, oh well.

After years in the lockup, Fiery-Icer learns to folly of tying his career to a bunch of green clad goons and instead ties his future to a bunch of...green-red-and-yellow clad goons i.e. Blue Beetle's foes the Madmen as well as the Manipulator and another foe of Captain Atom, Iron Arm. Despite sheer numbers on their side, Icer's sinister Squad is no match for the fully assembled Sentinels of Justice. Still he manages to squirm away from Nightshade, to be seen nevermore.

Friday Fiends: Greedy Gliding Goons

Ranking high up there on most desired superpowers would have to be defying gravity. Scores of costumed crusaders crowd clouds above their adoring public. Yet heroes aren't alone flying the friendly skies, there are those who would like to make those same skies a bit...fiendish. First up, August 1967's Blue Beetle #2,  Steve Ditko's Banshee debuted. Originally the apprentice of famed acrobat, the Flying Dundo, he saw an opportunity and snatched it to embark on a criminal life away from under the big top.

A similar pair of hovering hoods appeared in March 1985's Mighty Crusaders #11, the Buzzard and an insect man known only as "Sting", were presented.. Recruited by Eraser (whom we considered earlier) to bedevil the assembled heroes as the Riot Squad, there first target was the elder Black Hood from the 1940's which led to his untimely demise...and a drastic personality change in his heir apparent, Kip Burland, Black Hood II:

Immediately gaining the attention of news commentator Vic Sage during the Banshee's Crown City crime spree, Sage's alter ego the Question begins a one-man mission to bring the cruising crook back down to Earth and bring him...not back to the big top...but the big house...to face justice for his felonies and the demise of the fiend's inventive instructor, Dundo.

The Question was not alone in his obsessive drive to use his everyman approach against a seemingly superhuman adversary such as the Banshee, as the Black Hood went after the pair of flying fiends and their leader, despite lacking powers of his own, aided by Fly and the Crusaders:

When he finally had the Banshee in his grasp, the Question's actions led to the former acrobat's exile from the mainland to a deserted island for seven long years! Although reappearing for a rematch against the crusadering crimefighter, Banshee later joined Manipulator's  evil Squad against Question alongside Blue Beetle and the Sentinels of Justice:

 Decades after their seeming demise at the hands of the Comet, Vulture and Sting reappeared alongside a veritable legion of lethal larcenists for a rematch against the dimension traveling Mighty Crusaders, themselves now expanding their own membership to near unmanageable proportions:

Buzzard and Sting as well as Banshee and his mentor Dundo were only a few of the many in comics who made their mark above Terra Firma. Yet for their respective publishers during a handful of appearences, they provided a couple of memorable challenges for their flightless foes.